My blog post about “What is Twitter, and Why Should I Care?” had not been up more than a few hours when the Twitter stream offered up this perspective from John Stewart of the Daily Show.
As usual, it’s hilarious, made funnier by the more-than-grain of truth to it. The clip highlights the extremes of the Twitter spectrum. Of course, the reality lies somewhere in between.
Twitter can (and is) used for banalities. And Twittering while attending an important speech broadcast simultaneously worldwide says more about the Twit(terer) than anything else.
Mass communication tools, like email or SMS, can be used for spam. But, that does not mean that they don’t have their place and their appropriate business use models.
Some basic professional uses:
- Product announcements (linking to a demonstration or blog post)
- Instant polls
- A low-cost help-line
- Focus groups
- Event announcements and simple coordination
- Build and simply engage your users
- Live streaming (of something that is NOT broadcast worldwide!)
- Event (seminar, presentation) question submission (can be very effective)
How have you used Twitter professionally?
